Banner Credit: Heaven
Chapter 20
It had been a herculean task staying focused during the meeting as Payal's words refused to leave his mind. They came back to him at the most inappropriate moments, making him question his attitude, his decisions. Had he really failed in life? Had he failed Khushi? Was he really happy with her progress? It was only when he saw the worried look on his clients' face that he decided to keep all of that aside and concentrate on the meeting. Sinha had placed a lot of faith in him, and he vowed to give it his best.
It had been a long, exhausting day. After a day like this, he would usually go visit Khushi and get all the worries off his system; she had the ability to comfort him even after the worst of the days, soothing his worries in her own sweet way as he basked in the beauty of what they shared. As the elevator dropped him off at the parking lot in the basement, he realised he couldn't enjoy that luxury today. There were three more days for her return, and he'd have to get by them on his own.
He got into his car and fixed his seatbelt. Just as he was about to start the ignition, he heard his phone ring. Watching Khushi's name flash on his cellphone, he smiled his first genuine smile in that entire day.
"Give me a 7 letter word for strange!" was her loving opening line. But he had known Khushi long enough for that to not surprise him. As long as he could hear that sweet voice...
"Strange is itself a 7 letter word" he chuckled.
"No, the one I want ends with a 'y'."
He'd give anything to see that pout on her face right then. "Here I thought you'd be pining for me in that village of yours. But I see you have kept yourself busy!"
This time along, she was the one to wish she were there to watch the devastating smirk that she was sure adorned his face. "Don't say that. I hate to sound dramatic, but I have been miserable without you." she said, earnestly. It was like music to his ears. "You know, I have been at this crossword puzzle since last night. This is the longest it has ever taken me to solve a puzzle. See how miserable I am?"
"You do have an uncanny way of saying 'I miss you'"
"Dammit! Uncanny! That's the word! Why didn't I call you before! Thank you...I knew I loved for a reason" she teased.
"Oh - but why didn't you call me before? Busy day?"
"Urrgh tell me about it. It's a royal mess out here. The weather here is windy and hot, we had anticipated that. But there was a forest fire in one of the nearby villages and now everything is just...ruined."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh... Wait, I'll explain. We accounted for a certain amount of dust when we designed our panels. But because of this fire - there is so much more dust, not to mention soot. Thanks to that, our pilot run was far from successful. Too much dust, ergo too much shading, and so our panel efficiency plummets. It's a disaster!" she spoke in one breath.
"Just cleaning it up doesn't help?"
"Far from it. The dust from this forest fire will keep accumulating over time. And once our funding agency knows about the fire, which they will, the chances of our proposal getting accepted will be next to nothing unless we make changes to the design right now to cater to incidents like this."
"But forest fires don't happen every day, don't they know that?"
"Try explaining that to the big guys with the money.", she sighed. "Never mind. I don't want to talk about it. That's all I think about the rest of the day anyway. Tell me about your day."
He had been speaking to her for all for five minutes and that had been enough to make him forget about the day he'd just had. But just as he began to ease, Khushi had reminded him of the very thing he wanted to take his mind off.
"What, I thought you'd have a lot to tell me." she asked when he didn't respond to her question. "Amma said you were over at my place for lunch. I'm sure the meal was lovely. I am so jealous!"
"Yes, the food was nice." he managed to say.
"Nice? That's it? Arnav.. You're being awfully quiet. Are you not feeling well? Are you breathless? Did you forget your inhaler?" her pitch increasing with every word.
He had to smile. Her thoughts galloped and sprinted at the slightest provocation. "No, I'll have you know I am perfectly fine. Save some discomfort in the nether regions as we speak - nothing a cold shower cannot take care of."
"As long it's me you're thinking about in the shower." was a saucy response. "Now seriously, how was your day?"
Why wouldn't she drop that!, he thought desperately. But he knew better than to evade - her imagination would run wild and she'd probably reach the conclusion that his life was in grave danger because of which he was unable to speak freely, or worse, his car was bugged by the police or the CBI for some convoluted reason.
"My day was... long. I had a meeting this evening, in fact it just got over sometime back."
"Oh, is it about one of Sinha's three cases you were talking about?"
"Yes, it was. He is terribly tied up so he sent me to attend this one. We're trying to arrange an out of court settlement, but the lady is any lawyer's nightmare."
"What lady?" she was confused.
"Our client. Now-it-all, stubborn, obscenely rich. She claims her husband is worse...I can't imagine." he mused.
"I don't envy you. But I have my own woes."
"And what might they be?"
"Stupid forest fires. My boss who is a task master. Professor Merchant who is a slave driver. And the fact that Karthik has been calling me to follow up on the manuscript, and I have exhausted all ways of saying 'I have made zero progress" without actually saying those words." she ended her rant with a Hmph!
"Don't pout."
"I'm not p-"
"You are. And now don't stick your tongue out." he said confidently.
"And you stop smirking" was her fitting response. "And.. I miss you."
"I miss you too." he sighed. He knew it was time to end the call as he heard someone announce dinner on her end.
"Alright, now I'll have to go eat something to sustain myself here. Can't wait to be back. I'll talk to you tomorrow?"
"Sure, goodnight" he said, failing to keep the reluctance from his voice.
"I love you too." she said, her voice delightful, and then cut the call.
* * * *
"Oh. You're just in time for dinner!" Devyani welcomed him warmly as soon as she opened the door. He saw Aakash already at the dining table with a magazine in hand.
"I'll need some time to freshen up, Nani. You guys start, I'll join you in some time." Said Arnav, his voice giving away his exhaustion.
"No, we'll wait. Aakash is home on time today - its been a while since the three of us had dinner together. You don't mind waiting a bit, do you, Aakash?" she turned around to ask.
"No worries, Bhai. I am not starving, we'll wait." he said, his eyes on the magazine the whole time. Devyani smiled and gestured Arnav to go up to his room and freshen up.
*
*
Fifteen minutes later, fresh after a shower, Arnav made his way to the dining area. He saw Devyani instructing Om Prakash to make her a cup haldi doodh before he retired for the night, while Aakash was still engrossed in the magazine.
They sat down for dinner; Devyani snatched the magazine from Aakash's hands, much to his dismay, and placed it on the newspaper stand.
"You look much better now, Chotte" Devyani remarked as they began to eat. "When you walked in you looked positively exhausted."
"It was a long day Nani" Arnav shrugged.
"What does a 'long day' mean? I wait for my sons to come home, and you won't even tell me how your day was. You say long day', and all Aakash can do is stare at that magazine." she sulked, rather uncharacteristically.
"Whoa, what brought that about, Nani?" she finally had Aakash's attention.
"You two brought that about. Do you think I am making small talk here? I may be old and I may not understand a lot of the jargon you two seem to use, but I am genuinely interested in knowing about you day." her timbre softened.
"Of course Nani, we don't doubt that. I - " Aakash began but was cut mid-sentence by Arnav.
"We are sorry, Nani. You deserve better. So, do you want to know about my day?"
He was rewarded with a smile on his grandmother's face.
"You know about my lunch at Khushi's place. The food was lovely, in fact Garima has sent some kheer for you and Aakash."
"Yes, Garima called up in the afternoon. She said you were talking to Payal but left earlier than she had expected."
Neither Aakash nor Devyani missed the flash of anger and agony on Arnav's face; it was gone as swiftly as it had come, but Aakash knew he'd be talking to Payal soon. He was aware of her strong opinions on his brother's decisions and also that she never knew how to watch that lance like tongue. If the very mention of the event made his brother grimace, he was sure it had something to do with her. Aakash usually abstained from interfering in any matters that didn't directly concern him, but he knew it was a tough time for Arnav, and he would ensure Payal didn't make things worse.
Arnav recovered quickly; hoping nobody had noticed his discomfiture, he continued. "I had a meeting to get to. Sinha has been busy so he asked me to attend this one. It was on the other end of the city so I had to leave early" he lied. The meeting had in fact been just about a five-minute drive. He had spent the afternoon at a cafe preparing for the scheduled meeting.
"I hope the meeting went well, Chote?"
Swallowing another morsel of food, "It went well, Nani. The job isn't done yet, but I managed to convince the client to at least consider an out of court settlement."
"Why is that considered better, Bhai?" asked Aakash as he took another sip of water.
"Not always better, but it's far less messy. And we usually suggest this when there is child involved."
"Makes sense. Why put the child through all that?"
"Yes. The other times we prefer a settlement out of court is when the issue is...well, ridiculous. This one time, it seems the wife presented her husband an antique gramophone on their anniversary. So over the years, the two of them, especially the husband, collected several LP records they could play on it - some of them really rare and hard to find these days. During the divorce, the wife insisted that both the gramophone and the LP collection should come to her, as he would never have invested in those records if not for her gift. And the husband, who was our client, was happy to let her have the gramophone, but prized the record collection over his own life. That was the only major point of dispute - everything else, including assets, properties, shares - they were all settled without any trouble." Arnav smiled amusedly as he recalled the case, making his audience laugh with him.
"Did you win?" asked Akash, as he picked up the spoon to finish his meal with a cup of yoghurt.
"Yes. The lawyer on the other side was rather slow, made our job easier."
"I think you guys should take up cases like this every once in a while." Aakash suggested. "I'm sure most divorces are rather morbid. This would lighten things up, no?"
"Not really. It might sound crass, but when you find yourself managing truck loads of paperwork and procedure for such inane matters, or handling clients who have never heard of logic, you wish you were handling a divorce case that involved a nasty property dispute or a mother-in-law who is reason enough to warrant a divorce."
Just as he spoke, Om Prakash walked in to give Devyani her cup of turmeric milk. "Kaka", Arnav requested, "Can you just do us another favour? There is some kheer in the fridge, it's in a green box on the top shelf. Will you just bring that for us?"
OP nodded and with the smile turned back to the kitchen. "Look at that", Devyani said with some surprise, "when I ask him to do something, he makes a face. When his Arnav Baba asks him to bring him kheer, he is all smiles."
"Nani please, you think too much. You probably talk to him in that stern tone of yours and scare the poor man." Aakash suggested.
"Look who's talking! The Akash Raizada who scares the living daylights out of his employees." his brother teased.
"Oh please, I don't scare them. They behave that way because they respect me."
"How do you know that?" the question was out before he knew it, and now Arnav waited for Aakash to respond.
"They are never afraid to come to me for help. Or tell me if they need some time off or if they need to go home because their child is sick. They are afraid only if they have lied, or have been laidback or missed a deadline for no real reason."
"Look at my little boy all grown up" Devyani said with all the enthusiasm of a proud grandparent.
"Now you're embarrassing me" Aakash did look every bit embarrassed. "Its nothing Nani. I have learnt the hard way that it's good to empathize with people, but its important not to allow them to walk all over you. Or you will never be taken seriously. You will be trampled at the first sign of weakness. So, I'd rather be the scary boss than the boss no one ever listens too."
When had his brother grown up so much, evolved so much - Arnav wondered. Had he been so caught up in his own life that he had missed important moments in Aakash's life? Instead, all this while he had secretly accused Aakash of being indifferent towards his problems. And in all the time they seemed to have lost, Aakash had become wiser and stronger - learning the realities of the world much better and much faster than he had been able to, even using that wisdom to lead his life.
Akash had inadvertently shown Arnav where he was going wrong - what he needed to learn and what he needed to correct. He had allowed himself to be the plain canvas everyone he came across was allowed to paint on, but never realized what had become of him in the process. He had to find himself before he could find his individual happiness. Only then would he find peace, only then would he be able to love and be loved to the fullest.
A/N:
1)Thank you all for your lovely comments and encouragement for this story. I am so grateful to each one of you! đ¤
2)I know the story has been progressing very slowly in the last few updates. It will pick up pace from the next one, I promise đ
3) That divorce case with the LP records I referred to in the update has been taken (loosely) from an article I read a couple of years back in The Daily Mail.
Edited by vgedin - 11 years ago
Cricket
CID
330